Ben Small (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Those opposite refer to the EPBC reforms in front of the House as 'groundbreaking'. But the very real concern that I have representing the electorate of Forrest is they'll lead to no ground being broken at all. Before we dive into the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 and the six associated bills in some detail, I want to outline to the House my three areas of primary focus when it comes to considering the legislation proposed by the government.

The first is what benefit there is for industry in these reforms. As much as we hear hyperbole from those opposite that this is a great thing for industry in our country, the devil is in the detail—and that is of grave concern to many stakeholders from the great state of Western Australia, because it is the mining and resources industry that underpins the prosperity we enjoy in this country today. Secondly, there are conflicting and uncertain statements on unacceptable standards within the bills, and these pose a grave risk to the ability of proponents to get a project up and established in this country—which, again, in an era of declining productivity and declining standards of living, is simply unacceptable for the coalition to support. Thirdly, when it comes to bilateral assessments and approvals, the great state of WA should receive both immediately and simultaneously. We can't afford for there to be delay, prevarication or consideration of the need for a one-stop shop when it comes to these approvals. Without diving into the detail just yet, they are the three areas of concern that mean I, on behalf of the electorate of Forrest, find myself unable to support the current proposals.

At the end of the day, the bounty that our nation enjoys stems from the investment and approval decisions through the 2000s—that is, the mines that were first explored, discovered and then progressed, through development to production, date back to the mid-2000s, in reality. Today we enjoy the bounty of decisions that were made under the existing laws some 20 years ago. The question on my mind is: will these current proposed EPBC reforms unleash a new wave of mining investment in our country? The reality is that they won't. What's the impact of that? When you consider that the mining and resources industry has spent some $242 billion of capital expenditure in the last decade and generated some $395 billion of taxes and royalties in the same period, it should be clear to every Australian that our ability to pay for a social security net in this country comes from industry. At the end of the day, without that capacity to pay as a nation, it is our most vulnerable and our most disadvantaged who pay the greatest cost.

Mining and resources aren't the end of the story, of course. Oil and gas as an industry, in the last financial year alone, paid some $21.9 billion in taxes and royalties, which is equivalent to the entire cost of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. When mining does well, when industry does well, Australia does well. Importantly, if we curtail the extraction of resources domestically, we're pushing that production of resources to overseas jurisdictions who have lower environmental standards than those considered by environmental law here in Australia and who have lesser safeguards when it comes to workplace health and safety and the use of labour. Ultimately, we don't change the consumption of resources globally but we move it. We move it away from Australia, we deprive Australians of the benefits of the taxes and royalties that are paid for the extraction of our resources and we see greater environmental harm, accordingly. What I'm looking for is legislation here in Australia that will help our industry 'dig baby dig,' because that's what benefits all Australians. When our industry does well, we all do well.

Let's turn to some of the main areas of concern that I have with the EPBC legislation in front of the House. Firstly, when it comes to accreditation, those opposite have been very quick to point to the benefits of streamlining approvals through, effectively, a one-stop shop in licensing state based EPAs to conduct approvals and assessments. The great shame, really, is that there are those opposite who are part of this government who had the opportunity to support such an important reform in this place in 2021. Imagine where we would be as a country if we had knocked the red tape, the restriction, the regulation that's contemplated by that almost five years ago. I won't be lectured by the government on the importance of this, because, like I say, they had the opportunity to get behind that almost five years ago and failed to do so.

In fact, just earlier this morning, upstairs in a committee room not far from here, we were discussing the Smokebush Gallium Project in Western Australia, which the Albanese government have been keen to trumpet as a great success story. As a brownfields project, it is not impacted by the EPBC Act. Importantly, the proponents of that project just articulated the reality that if it was impacted, this project would be some five to 10 years away. That's where we need to call out the failure of EPBC in Australia, because we are so bound up in red tape, regulation and restriction and so bound up in environmental 'lawfare' that our industries that generate the prosperity for us all to enjoy and benefit from are simply lagging behind. This bill in its current form does not suitably address that. I say again, Western Australia and its EPA should be accredited immediately and without delay under these reforms. That would be something I could certainly support.

In terms of the prospect of a net gain, which is principally what Labor used to call nature positive, until that became politically difficult for them, there's no clear guidance on how this would be applied and measured. It simply can't be put into legislation. Inevitably, we would discover there were unintended consequences or difficulties in the implementation, and the reality is that we would then have to be back debating the legislation once more in the House. If it were pushed off into the standards, we would see the ability for those net gain principles to change over time in a nimble and agile way, as I think, at its heart, the government really sees some benefit in.

What they need to do is listen to stakeholders and actually respond accordingly, because there are simply mad examples that abound in our country of offsets that are out of control—one tree with a couple of black cockatoos involved requiring the offset of some thousand trees elsewhere is in the way of housing developments, for instance. We wonder why we can't get housing supply to market. We wonder why the government's Housing Australia Future Fund is simply unable to do that. It's because of these sorts of restrictions and this madness.

When we get to unacceptable impacts, the criteria are just too low, and businesses from WA are telling me that it is a real risk to future projects. There are more than 5,000 FIFO employees in Busselton alone that depend on the mining industry for their jobs. I hear those industry participants telling me in private rooms that this is a key risk of the bill. I'm urging the government to follow the Samuel review and put those into the standards, not the legislation, for the same reasons I just mentioned earlier.

Importantly, in this place, we should use the powers of retrospectivity very cautiously indeed. It is unacceptable to me on a first-principles basis—and it is unacceptable to many that I talk to at home, in Western Australia—that conditions could be imposed under this reformed legislation retrospectively. You can't go shifting goalposts when it comes to capital investment decisions that amount in the billions of dollars. If the government is upfront and honest with Australians that there is no intention at all to retrospectively alter the environmental conditions attached to projects, they should be clear about that. It's very simple for them to say n-o—'No, we will not impose retrospective alterations on industry in Australia under these reforms.' They've failed to do so to date, and, until they do, I certainly could not vote for this legislation.

When we come to environmental protection orders, the threshold is too low in my view, but it's not the main issue with it. The main issue with the way the legislation is drafted presently is that there's no appeal process. There is no right to natural justice for someone impacted by an environmental protection order to seek remedy, to have their day in court and to be heard in that way. That is a severe failing of any legislation contemplated by this House. It would be quite simple for the government to fix. Whilst that single biggest issue is a barrier to the effective implementation of environmental legislation that would have the right balance between the environment and industry in Australia, again, I simply can't afford to support it, because my state's prosperity—and that indeed underwrites the prosperity of the country—depends on getting this stuff right.

It's worth reflecting on how we got here, because, yes, the Samuel review was commissioned under the coalition government, as we've heard. But the reality is that, since they came to power in 2022, the government have been shrouding this legislation in secrecy. Stakeholders have been forced to sign non-disclosure agreements. They've been drip-fed little bits here and there. Now it seems like the minister's in some sort of rush, because we've got extended sitting hours this week, and, all of a sudden, the government are using their numbers in the House here to move around the order of business and have us talk about this stuff until 10 pm each night. Yet, at the same time, the reporting date for the Senate inquiry is March next year. So if there's not some dirty deal at play here, if there's not some sort of stunt in the works, what is the tearing rush? The reality is that this legislation represents a quarter-century reform. It needs to be considered. It needs to get the balance right. In its current form, it doesn't.

Anyone that thinks that 1,500 pages of legislation could be suitably considered and scrutinised in this place in just a matter of weeks is honestly delusional. The reality is that the Australian people need to understand what these reforms mean. Industry needs to have the opportunity to have their say, as do environmental stakeholders. There are two sides to this, and it is a matter of getting the balance right, so what is the problem with allowing this process of inquiry through the parliament to take place to allow the issues and unintended consequences to be fixed through suitable amendments? That's ultimately what we are calling for. We're not being obstructionist; we have committed, of course, to being constructive where we can. There is a genuine desire on the part of the coalition to respond to feedback from industry that these laws do need improvement. But, in their current form, for the reasons I've just articulated, the reality is that we simply can't support them.

Colleagues have taken some time to step through the concerns and the issues that we're highlighting in the legislation, but what I'm hearing back from the other side of the chamber is that the government is determined to press ahead with this legislation. We're not hearing responses to the criticism; we're hearing government talking points just repeated ad nauseam, one member after another, chewing up time in this place without constructively engaging in what should be a really important national debate. I guess it reflects a government that says one thing and does another. I always urge people in this place to look at what Labor does rather than listen to what it says.

We can't afford to get this wrong. We've seen the consequences of legislation like this going wrong in the past, and then there's a mad scramble to try and fix it up. They crunched through all sorts of legislation in home affairs and made a terrible mess and then had to fix it up multiple times. This stuff, which underpins our national prosperity as a country, simply can't afford that sort of risky behaviour.

All we're asking for is the time to consider this legislation appropriately and responsiveness on the part of the government to genuine concern from environmental stakeholders, industry groups and project proponents themselves across the entire spectrum of activity in Australia, from housing development all the way through to our largest mining, oil and gas projects. That's what's at stake in this place today and, indeed, this week and that's why we can't support this legislation in its current form.

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